“Why shouldn’t I behave as a killer if I’m to suffer the same fate regardless?” Fire danced in her hair. Vaun groaned. Her dark eyes, which should have been lit with the silver and gold of Jasadi magic, brimmed with pain. Pain so severe, Arin suspected she had stopped seeing it for what it was. She would have recast it as anger, as an inborn quality of her character. Incomprehensibly volatile, he had thought. Lack of emotional mastery. She probably thought the same. She was bleeding, right there in front of him, and the fatal wound wasn’t the one either of them could see.
“If Sylvia survives, she will return,” he told Wes. His loyal guard’s eyes widened.
“Sire, you cannot mean to let her go. You have chased her since—”
Arin turned his horse toward the Ivory Palace and snapped the reins.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I sank through clouds of mist and ash, grappling for purchase.
We were in a nursery, me and two other shadows. An infant slept in the corner.
“You cannot do this to him!” a frail woman gasped. Recognition rippled through my flickering body. Isra of Nizahl. Arin’s mother. “He won’t survive it. Please, Rawain, you have to wait.”
The second shadow took shape. I stumbled back, hitting the baby’s bassinet. The Supreme did not react, oblivious to my presence. Supreme Rawain regarded his weeping wife with disdain. “What do you care what happens to my son?”
“He is mine just as he is yours. Please, I beg you. Two years old, three. He’ll withstand it then. Imagine the power of your ascension with a healthy Heir at your side. Your father had you. See how he prospers! When you become Supreme, Arin will be your Heir. Your legacy.”
Rawain palmed the jeweled glass orb at the head of his scepter. The sight of it had his wife reaching for the infant, bundling him in her arms.
“Two years, not three,” Rawain grunted. “He cannot remember the loss.”
She rocked the child in her arms, stroking tufts of black hair.
Black hair?
Voices floated in the nothingness, calling my name. My false name.
The voices argued loudly. One of them, melodic even in fury, sent awareness trickling through the fog.
I was so cold.
The voice changed, coming closer. The lilting one spoke in gentle Nizahlan. I glanced at the place where my hand used to be, startled by a phantom pressure.
I landed in a void of darkness. Water lapped at my legs.
The darkness writhed, coalescing into four thrones before me. I stumbled back. My foot caught on the edge of a sheer stone. If I had a body, I might have bled.
Each throne save one held an occupant. They glittered with the glory of the stars and sun, the only light in a barren wasteland. They were time and life and death made magic, existing beyond the realms of earthly souls.
Reverent tears dripped from my chin, joining the shallow waters moving beneath the Awaleen.
“An eternity of sleep does not guarantee their safety,” said Kapastra, beloved mother of Omal. “What if we wake?”
“What if we do not?” whispered Baira. Her beauty seared me so thoroughly I could not lift my gaze a second time. “What if we dwell between the bounds of life and death forever?”
“We cannot remain aboveground any longer,” Dania boomed. “Our children need peace.”
“Rovial ruined them. Why should we punish ourselves with him?” Baira rasped. “Especially since he is not even—”
“Fortify your faith in my prophecy, sister,” Dania said. The Orban Awala’s gaze lingered over the vacant throne, a grief older than the fabric of our world swimming across her features. “Infinite slumber is not our destiny. When—”
Dania paused. Her head turned slowly.
The darkness pulsed, and she took shape directly in front of me.
“You should not be here.” Her power undulated the void around us. “Not yet.”
She pressed two fingers to my temples. Warmth replaced the encroaching cold, chasing it to the fringes. Colors filled the shadowy outline of my body. The mist whirled.
“Soon, Essiya,” Dania promised.
I woke choking on a scream.
Eventually, my racing heart slowed. I blinked up at the roof of a tent, far bigger than the one I’d slept in during the trip to Lukub.
I sat up gingerly, waiting for the tearing pain from my wound. Nothing happened. I palpated my chest. Smooth skin met my touch.
A stirring to my right distracted me from my complete bewilderment. Arin slept soundly, an arm’s length away from my makeshift cot. He hadn’t woken. Crescent shadows circled his eyes, deep enough to bruise.
Pushing myself tentatively to a stand, I staggered under a spurt of dizziness and glanced down at myself. They must have cut me out of the gown. I had on a long woolen frock that fit too snugly around my hips. I’d been lying on several stacked bedrolls, yet Arin only had a thin quilt beneath him.
I eased myself through the flap in the tent.
Dawn hadn’t yet breached the horizon. The air was warm. Far warmer than Lukub. The soles of my feet brushed cracked earth, unsettling tiny pebbles of dry sand. This was an Orbanian landscape. Had we crossed the border?
I soaked in these little marvels, grateful to be alive for them. Nine smaller tents clustered near Arin’s. A mighty procession of horses whinnied, clomping their hooves against the ground.
How long had I slept?
The guards on sentry duty came into view. I ducked into the tent, not ready to be seen or spoken to.
Arin jerked to his feet, blade aloft before he’d fully roused from his slumber. I raised my arms.
“You’re awake,” he said. The blade fell to the ground.
“Yes, and you shouldn’t be.” I frowned. “A rambunctious leaf could knock you over. Come, take my cot.”
Rendered inanimate by exhaustion, the Nizahl Heir simply stared at me. I gestured for the cot, and he followed the command without argument. Rovial’s burning beard, how much had healing me cost him?
We sat across from each other.
“You have an unpleasant habit of nearly dying,” Arin said.
“Twice does not a habit make.” I tapped the newly repaired place where Soraya ran me through. “I suppose I have you to thank for this?”
Arin exhaled. “I could heal the wound only in increments. I had to wait until you roused enough for your magic to respond. Two days, pressing your hand and waiting.”
Two days? A chill traveled along my arms. Soraya had almost succeeded.
I raised my brows. “How? Weren’t you moved to finish me off?”
“Every second I touched you,” he said flatly. “It was… much harder than I anticipated. She did significant damage.”
Shivering, I thrust aside the reality of how close I’d come to tasting death. “I suppose I owe you my gratitude. Thank you.”
“Don’t—” Arin cut himself short, more agitated than I’d ever seen him. “Keep your gratitude. Fortune alone saved you.”
Fortune hadn’t healed the hole in my chest, but I let it pass. I asked the most important question. “Did you catch her?”
Arin fixed his gaze on a spot over my shoulder. “She escaped.”
I clenched my teeth, suppressing a slew of curses. The small part of me that loosened in relief went unacknowledged. Soraya was as dead to me as she was before the Banquet.
“We’ll catch her at the Alcalah. We’ll catch Soraya and the rest of the Mufsids.”
“Why aren’t you angry?” Arin snapped. “You nearly died to give me time to catch her, and I failed.”